


Dead Man's Party

by khooliha



Category: Evil Dead (Movies), Re-Animator (1985)
Genre: Gen, Halloween, Holidays, Transdimensional Beings, questioning your humanity can be a okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 06:03:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8434447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khooliha/pseuds/khooliha
Summary: It's the first Halloween Ash is trying to celebrate since saving the world. It goes about as well as he expects.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to Books and Needles Just Don't Mix, and references that work.

Fall. Herbert West had never really had an opinion about fall, or any season really. In recent years he had spent enough time in laboratories or basements that seasons didn’t register, not even in the grim marches between nodes of experimentation. This year had been the first one for seasons, looking out over the faces of the people he was teaching. Living in a house with someone who had very strong season opinions didn’t help his usual indifference. 

Herbert was walking back from his last class of the day. The sun was beginning to set, but only just, and a light breeze was kicking dead leaves across the sidewalk, the street, the world. He watched them skip by and felt like he was seeing them for the first time since childhood. A frown etched a familiar line between his eyebrows. He didn’t think back that far, not anymore. Not usually. 

But as he looked down the row of houses he noticed fabric ghosts hanging from half-bare branches, a plastic skeleton seemingly taped to a front door, a homemade scarecrow heaped over a peeling porch railing. When had he last even considered Halloween? The breeze was at his back now, pushing him down the street, and he wondered how far back he should go. 

*

Ash Williams had pulled his laptop out onto the porch, letting the snaking charge cord hold the screen door open just that much and damn the insects. He needed music for this task. Because this wasn’t just carving a pumpkin – it was a return. 

Saying the previous year had been a nightmare was an insulting understatement. The gentle rituals he had to go with each season had fallen away, eaten by terror and loathing. The first nine months of this year had been existing in a kind of edge state, Ash unable to shake the feeling that any moment it would all crumble back into ancient, bloody dust. But the world hadn’t gone to shit around him. He had a home, the burgeoning signals of a life. No one had come to try and peel his skin off in nearly a year. 

So, even though it seemed the worst place to start, he had decided to try Halloween. If he could keep it together in his former favorite time of year then he could keep it together anywhen. (Even spring, when the empty campus had caused flashbacks and his paranoia had mounted to a breaking point. The only reason he hadn’t run screaming was Herbert, exasperated but a constant, solid presence.) 

His fall playlist, winding and personal and un-updated for a year and a half, was blasting out of cheap speakers, only just covering some unseen neighbor’s fall dirge. While the looping, complicated melody had prodded Ash’s curiosity, he ignored it. He was trying to accomplish something. Ash sat on the porch for the first handful of songs, eyes closed, thinking of fall days with his family, each of them carving a gourd, him and Cheryl being too competitive about it. He had almost stopped without really starting, feeling ready to crawl back into the house and draw the curtains tight and sit in the dark, doing his best to not think about anything. 

Instead his hands moved without him, seizing the pumpkin and knife, beginning entirely off of muscle memory. It had only been two years since he had done this last, no matter how long the years had felt, and he got into the groove quickly. He could feel students walking by staring at him. He could be a student, but here he was, scooping the insides of a pumpkin out with his hands, singing badly to some song or another, scarred and hair streaked white. Ash didn’t care. For the moment he felt normal. 

He considered throwing a handful of pulp and seeds into the little yard, but he doubted that Herbert would be on board with a surprise pumpkin yield. “I’ll just eat you instead, how about that?” Ash heard Herbert coming up the walk, but didn’t look up from his work. Just a moment longer in a time that could have been before…

*

The pumpkin looked like something out of a cartoon. It had the classic, cliché grin that beamed out of every Halloween display, every card aisle, every commercial. Herbert wanted to be annoyed at it. 

But Ash was smiling too, grinning in a way Herbert didn’t see very often. Privately he had been worried that Halloween was going to be difficult for Ash – undead around every corner, frights for fun. Instead he was seemingly embracing the holiday and Herbert would be lying if he said he wasn’t even a little relieved. College kids liked Halloween, it seemed, and Herbert didn’t want Ash suffering simply because of where they lived. 

Ash looked up as Herbert mounted the couple of stairs to the porch. It was covered in newspaper and flecks of pumpkin innards and he wasn’t entirely sure where it was safe to step. Ash reached out a dirty hand to turn down some slow, melancholy song. “Do you like pumpkin seeds?” 

Herbert paused in trying to chart a route to his doorway. “I don’t think I’ve ever tried them.” 

“I’m going to roast these ones, then, once I finish this up.” 

Herbert peered into the bucket of orange glop. “Are you going to make a pie as well?” 

Ash snorted. “You kidding? I don’t fuck with that part – leave it to the pie professionals. I can roast seeds. You’re lucky you’re not getting a pumpkin patch.” 

“What?” 

“Never mind.” 

Herbert picked a careful path, one that left him with his dignity intact and his shoes clean, and surveyed the inside of their house. The changes were small but instantly noticeable: some sort of stick-and-feather raven on a shelf, a couple bats stuck to a window, and, of course, the large white bowl, ringed with black cat silhouettes, full of candy and near the door. No ghosts, skeletons, zombies, or even vampires Herbert noticed. Nothing dead and still moving. Ash slipped past him, plunking his bucket in the sink. “If you don’t like it I can take it down.” He had left his laptop on the porch and Herbert ducked back out to grab it before answering. 

“It’s a college town Ash. I don’t know how much trick or treating anyone is going to be doing.” 

“Better safe than sorry. Besides, if no one comes by then we have a bunch of candy. It’s win-win.” He was focused on cleaning seeds and didn’t see Herbert carefully considering his additions. 

There was a candle on the coffee table, one simply labeled “Leaves.” “You know it smells like leaves outside, right? You don’t need to buy a candle that smells like that.” 

“Would you have preferred a pumpkin candle?” 

“I don’t see why you need a candle for any of those things at all.” 

“I won’t light it around you.” 

Herbert put it down, exactly where he had found it. Ash looked up from his task. “I didn’t say you had to do that. I don’t know if I’ve ever understood any seasonal candle.” 

Ash smiled. “It’s about ideals, which is why you don’t get it.” 

“Hilarious, as always.” 

“Does that mean I can keep my stuff?” 

Herbert studied the bowl of candy, plucking out a promising looking representative. “I don’t see why not.” It was two days before Halloween and he didn’t’ see any problem with celebrating a little bit. If Ash was willing to, why shouldn’t he be? 

*

The strangest part of Ash’s day was around three in the morning. The whole world seemed still and quiet. Doubtless there were students out there, studying or trying to live a sliver of life, professors doing the same, but most early mornings Ash felt as alone as he ever did. It was nearly a year since being re-animated and he hadn’t slept a moment since he died. At the time it had felt like a gift, it still was really, but it was hard to not miss it on nights like this. He sat at the kitchen table, chin in hand, staring out into the dark. He should do something, anything, but he didn’t stir. His candle was flickering on the table and its reflection kept catching his eye. One of these nights he should look into meditation or something. Not tonight. 

It had been a solid candle choice. Ash had wanted something pumpkin scented but he also didn’t want to be a cliché, not that anyone would care. He couldn’t picture Herbert being any more irritated or puzzled by pumpkin spice than anything else. Not that he had been difficult about it; it had been two days and he hadn’t said anything about the minor decoration. In fact, the raven on the shelf had been rotating slightly without Ash touching it. The image of Herbert secretly fiddling with the fake bird made him smile. And the candle had been lit once, either by a ghost or Herbert. Ash knew which explanation he preferred. 

He stared at the flickering light and his breathing slowed. It had been a good two days, it really had. His fear that some of the grislier tropes of the holiday would set him off… well, it wasn’t unfounded but it also wasn’t as bad as he had anticipated. He wouldn’t get his before back, he couldn’t expect that, but this was promising. This was better, and he would take any shard of better. 

There was music outside. Despite the quiet he hadn’t noticed it, not until this very moment. Ash frowned and glanced out into the darkness. Nothing, just like before. Closing his eyes in an effort to focus he realized it was the song from two days before. Or maybe just another song from the same band? Swooping, dense, and if there were lyrics in it he couldn’t quite grasp them. It was somehow louder than it had been during the day, here at 3 am. Who the hell was playing music right now? And could he get away with shit like that? It would make the twilight hours less weird. Ash’s thoughtful frown slowly flattened out into a sort of calm, no longer trying to pinpoint the music’s source point, simply listening. Without his notice his heart stopped beating. 

*

Teaching on Halloween, it turned out, was something of a trial. It wasn’t so much the costumes, which ranged from insultingly sloppy to shocking elaborate (and Herbert didn’t understand either extreme), as much as it was the drinking, alcohol “cleverly” secreted into water bottles. Some people had gone even further, mixing directly with electrolyte-heavy sports drinks. Disgusting, but as long as they didn’t disrupt his class he decided to let them get away with it. Fighting with them didn’t feel worth it on a Friday afternoon. As he watched his last class of the day file out, he wondered about that. Surely he wasn’t easing up, going soft. He’d make the next exam that much nastier, to make up for it. Satisfied, he made his way back to his office, to make himself available to students who definitely weren’t coming by today. 

There were cardboard skeletons in windows and stringy fake cobwebs across lab alcoves. How had he not noticed this stuff before today? Herbert studied each kitschy little thing, unsure of what he was looking for. There was no deep message in these paper bats. There were only puns on these Styrofoam headstones. When he finally made it to his office he couldn’t help but think it looked bare. He pushed the frivolous thought away and tried to focus. 

He had meant to go through a normal door, the door back to his office. His prevailing thought, as he stared around at dark, organic walls and cobwebs and flickering candles, was ‘Am I missing office hours?’ Asking himself where he was wasn’t going to yield any answers, so he skipped it. The passageway smelled like autumn, gentle leaf rot and spice. And grave dirt. He shook his head aggressively. It was one thing to step into some strange place and it was another entirely to have memories of things he (or Ash) had never experienced. That, more than any of the rest of it, irritated him. 

Ahead of him, unseen around a bend, was a splash. Herbert weighed his options and shrugged. He wasn’t going to make anything happen by standing around here. He strode forward with purpose and a snipped off sort of confidence, bite sized and bitter. 

Beyond the curve was a hollow and at the center of the hollow was a bath and Herbert was sure that he was missing a lot of details because in the bath was a woman who had a carved pumpkin where her head should be. She had noticed his entrance and casually waved him over. Her fingers were too long, there were too many joints. Herbert went anyway. 

He pulled up what he hoped was longer than an arms’ length from the edge of the pool. Inside the water roiled gently and he could see it shifting hues in the light of dozens of candles. The woman was smiling, in that frozen jack-o’-lantern way. Herbert half expected her features to move, but she spoke and her face remained still. 

“West. You can come closer, you know.” 

“I can also stay right here,” he snapped back. At the sound of his name his skin had tensed up into goosebumps and goosebumps were not in his repertoire. “Did you bring me here?” 

The woman slowly looked around her chamber, as if double checking where here was. “I did.” 

“Do you want to tell me why?” His voice was rising, echoing in the space, and he fought to keep it down. 

She cocked her head and Herbert was certain she was laughing at him. “I suppose I could.” He stood there, glowering, as full of contempt as he could manage and he hoped she could see him in the gloom. The moment drug on and on, but Herbert maintained the chill. “I brought you here to talk to you about your companion.” 

Now this was a fear Herbert could understand. “Ash?” 

She waved one overlong hand and Herbert flinched as a droplet from the pool landed on his cheek. “The one you have chosen to stay with. Names are not important.” 

Herbert couldn’t stop a sneer. “You knew mine.” 

The pumpkin grin couldn’t have gotten wider. It was only a trick of the candles. “Impressions _are_ important. You know that already.” 

Herbert arranged his features into his favorite expression: pointed, insolent disinterest. He hadn’t gotten to use it recently, as it didn’t do to flash it at students who were trying their best. “How about you stop wasting my time and tell me whatever it is you brought me here to tell me.” The act distracted him just a bit from his fear, from the mounting worry about Ash. 

“Do you know what I am?” 

“Not at all.” But a feeling was building up at the base of his spine and the pale scars on his palms itched. It was a sensation that he hadn’t felt since destroying the Necronomicons. 

“You don’t need to frown so. I am no fire-thing from somewhere else, hungry for your soul.” Her voice got softer. “I am not going to hurt you.” 

“You know about deadites though. You…” He grit his teeth at the imprecision. “You feel like a deadite.” 

“I am from another plane of existence, it is true. But instead of snatching at vessels like those vile little imps I accept the shape your world offers me.” 

He looked at her again, in light of this. Jack-o’-lantern head, glowing from within, skin mottled in the colors of fallen leaves. Even with the too long fingers she still seemed like something you might find in the seasonal aisle of your local drugstore. Except. Except some invisible edge of her whipped in an unfelt wind and when you peered into her hollow eyes you didn’t see the inside of some gourd – you saw somewhere else, the place you might go someday, when your remains are disposed of. It would have been sensible to turn away from that gaze. Herbert didn’t. 

“So you’re another transdimensional entity. What does that have to do with Ash?” 

“He and I are not so different. That is what I brought you here to warn you about. He is becoming a thing between worlds.” 

Herbert frowned hard. “It was something the deadites did to him, a plot to enter this world. He knows. I know.” He knew it, but he tried to ignore it as often as possible. 

“You think you know. It is, I believe, your most enduring trait. Scrape the meat away, West, and you’d be steely, hollow certainty.” She reached for him and he finally allowed himself to be intimidated. He stepped back and she chuckled and let him be. “You would be certainty and he would be fear. It doesn’t matter, not at this moment. What matters is that he is a half-formed creature and this is a half-formed day, at least for this plane of existence.” 

“Is it dangerous?” Herbert’s fists clenched involuntarily. Fighting was not his preferred method of anything but, at the same time, he really, really wanted to hit something. The supernatural did that to him. 

“It’s interesting, not dangerous.” She was leaning back now, sinking further into the bubbling pool. Herbert felt a breeze across the back of his neck and he knew it was an invitation to leave the chamber. Her warning had been delivered, she had had her fun. Dismissal. 

“You brought me here because something is going to be interesting?” Herbert laced every syllable with scorn. He bared his teeth in a smile that no one would mistake for something friendly. In that moment he didn’t care that she was some great beast from beyond the veil, that he was only there at her leisure - she had made him worry and she had mocked him. “Thank you so much for the warning.” 

The soul of Halloween stopped her backwards slide into the water. She caught his gaze, held it without the tiniest twitch of effort, and slowly began to rise. He couldn’t move and, too late, he felt the too-familiar constriction on his chest that let him know he had gone too far. As she rose and the water streamed off of her Herbert could see through her, through fabric he wasn’t meant to pierce. _Too many bones_ his brain said, ignoring the straining of his joints _too many bones_ and as she rose up they unfurled beyond her form, beyond the room, and if he looked too long he’d know their names and he could never unknow them, never not count them in every empty space. She reached out, fingers as long as God, and cut him across his cheek. He didn’t feel the two small gouges, but he could see the blood hanging from fractal bone claws, gleaming as beautifully as polished stones. Something snapped, a rubber band pulled too tight, and Herbert was turning, stumbling out, gaining speed. Around him the candles guttered and went out as he passed. 

He threw himself around some bend and then he was back in his office, nearly tripping over his chair. He leaned against the familiar, solid thing and tried to catch his breath. His office smelled like grave dirt. Something behind him, far away, laughed. _Trick or treat_. 

*

As the sun went down the song got louder. It had taken hours of careful listening, but Ash was sure of it. It still wasn’t loud enough to make out the words, which was driving him crazy. He was pacing around the small house and his pace had fallen in time with the underlying beat that seemed just outside his door. If he stayed here even one minute more he’d lose it. 

And yet. The manic energy that was sitting on his sternum felt uncomfortably familiar. It was the jitter of the moments before possession. He couldn’t go out there if he was going to go deadite. He couldn’t keep breathing if he was going to go deadite. Ash didn’t go looking for his overdose of reagent though, instead standing in the middle of the living room, clenching and unclenching his hands. Nearly a year out from his last brush with the Necronomicon and it had taken him this long to get to the brink. Maybe it was just paranoia, maybe it was simply Halloween. Or maybe he was about to cave inward like his jack-o’-lantern would in a day or two, succumbing to inevitable rot. And maybe, just maybe, it didn’t matter in this moment. The music he still couldn’t quite hear trilled into a jaunty tune and Ash had an idea. 

He went to the bathroom which, per his request, had the only mirror in the house. His reflection didn’t seem out of sorts - all his usual disfigurement and oddity was accounted for. It was half a surprise and half a comfort. Still, this wasn’t the whole test. With one centering breath he leaned forward, hands braced on either side of the sink, nose almost touching the reflective surface. “I’m fine,” he whispered, keeping his eyes wide, looking for any roil or flicker or twitch. When nothing happened he said again, louder “I’m fine.” Nothing again and Ash watched his smile in the mirror. There weren’t any fangs in it. “I’m fine.” And he meant it. When had he last said it, let alone meant it? Ash nodded at his reflection and turned sharply. It was time to go the fuck outside. 

*

The sun was setting, stretching Herbert’s shadow out as he picked up his pace. He ignored it, pointedly. He had lost a ridiculous amount of time and Ash wasn’t answering the phone. He wasn’t going to run, not yet, not where he was supposed to be a figure of authority, but he moved briskly and efficiently, practically ruthless. The cuts on his face began to sting in the cool fall air and he was relieved to finally feel them. Across the street, around the school, houses were lighting up orange and purple and green, candles flickering from behind carved faces and underneath flimsy ghost props. Music began to thump behind halls, an equal mix of dance beats and novelty tunes. Herbert glared at nothing. At the edge of his hearing something tugged, a chant maybe, but he didn’t have time. He’d figure out where he had heard it before later. Most likely it was something from the handful of Halloween parties he had been to as a child. It certainly didn’t matter. 

Students were spilling onto the sidewalk and every one of them gave Herbert a wide berth, sometimes skipping into the street and slopping the drink they were carrying to avoid him. He took one last turn and saw his house. It was dark and Herbert’s heart sank. It wasn’t as if Ash never left the house, but when he did he made sure that he had his phone on him, since you never knew what kind of emergency there might be. Even the jack-o’-lantern was hollow and cold. Herbert combed through the house quickly. There was no sign of forced entry or a struggle, at least to his eye. The door had even been locked, so Ash had either been spirited away or left of his own volition. Both options felt equally likely. Frustrated Herbert stalked back to the porch and considered the darkening street. He had no clue, no direction to start with and he could feel a headache starting just behind his eyes. 

At his feet Ash’s pumpkin flared to light, bathing the porch, and Herbert, in a green light. He looked down, forcing his hands into his pockets to keep from grabbing the thing and doing something he may regret later. “Don’t,” was all he said and he would have sworn the thing winked at him without moving. 

Herbert closed his eyes, counted to five. He may not have a clue where he needed to go, but he wasn’t going to stay here. Left seemed as good a direction as any. As he was leaving the porch he thought he heard something humming that sort of familiar tune and he couldn’t be entirely sure that the something doing the humming wasn’t him. He ground his teeth and kept going. So far Halloween was doing a pretty poor job endearing itself to him. 

*

Ash stepped through the door and knew in an instant that the music nagging at him wasn’t coming from here. He also knew that he couldn’t just walk out of the house again, since more students were crowding in behind him. Instead he moved inside and did his best to not brush against drunk, happy bodies. 

Living near a college campus for nearly a year had properly reminded Ash that students were loud, but this was _loud_ , so loud that he could almost feel the noise vibrating against his skin, never mind inside his sternum. The flow of people pushed him along and Ash mingled without saying a word and not a soul minded. Ash took in the milieu and was hit with the reminder that it hadn’t been so long since he would have been going to parties like this one – many of the costume staples were still present. Pirates, zombies, closet dregs thrown together into vague approximations of careers, plus “sexy” costumes of every stripe. 

While he was watching a pair of vampires stumbled up to him, leaning on one another for support. They were laughing and peering at him closely, but Ash didn’t feel the expected rush of self-consciousness. “Hey man!” the left vampire said, grin revealing plastic fangs, “who did your scars?” 

“They’re amazing!” the other vampire chimed in eagerly. Ash reached up and gently touched one of the many scars crossing his face and neck. 

“I have a friend,” he said, by way of explanation. A number of friends, really, and his own dark mirror, but he thought of that without cringing or guilt. All he felt, in that moment, was the truth of the statement, and a well of fondness for the marks they had left in his skin. 

“Are they into actual special effects? Cause if they’re not they should go pro!” They were nodding so vigorously that they were in danger of tipping one another over. 

“I’ll let them know,” Ash said and the vamps reached out and clapped him on each shoulder, nearly simultaneously, before disappearing in a cloud of “see you around, man”s. Ash smiled as they went, still feeling that inexplicable warmth. He needed to leave, to get away from all these innocent partiers. A corner of his brain knew that without question but the rest of it was enjoying the noise and the light and the heat. The rest of it felt alive in a way he couldn’t really claim anymore. 

And look at all these children! Delighting in playing at being dead. He could show them, of course, how you really did it, the real trick to playing dead. More than that, he wanted to show them how to stop breathing and to keep your heart from beating, to shut down the neurons and run on a different energy. 

No. No he fucking didn’t. Ash shook himself and while the feeling didn’t quite leave it retreated, laying low under the loose contentment that was filling him. He should go. He should leave and figure out what was happening to him and get away from all of this, get back to somewhere dark and lonely. 

Ash leaned against the wall and watched the happy people and smiled. 

*

He couldn’t have bought a mask, could he’ve? If Herbert had missed Ash on the street because he was wearing some costume Herbert was going to kill him and not even revive him this time. Every single person who had brushed past him on the sidewalk turned his head, and Herbert hated squinting at them in the dark. He knew, rationally, that Ash wouldn’t just run past him without a word, but his anxiety was building and choking him. If the people would just stop for one second he could center himself again, but they kept coming. 

On his right a sudden bass thump nearly knocked him over and he wheeled on it, anger focusing instantly. Music and light poured out of the house and people poured in. It was the biggest party Herbert had seen all night. He didn’t think Ash would go someplace so crowded, so steeped in college, since it would almost certainly remind him of his past. No, Ash wouldn’t have come here, but Herbert found himself walking in anyway, moving with purpose amid all the revelry. A student of his caught his eye and waved. “Dr. West! What are you dressed up as?” 

Herbert responded without slowing down. “A mad scientist.” 

*

Ash felt Herbert coming before he saw the crowd parting to let him through. The scientist was scowling and Ash knew he shouldn’t laugh and he knew that he was going to anyway. Herbert’s scowl deepened and Ash bit his tongue because if he wasn’t careful they would slip into an unending loop of laughing and frowning until the sun went out. 

“Are you alright?” It was the angriest read he had ever heard on that question. Herbert wasn’t even really looking at him. Instead he was looking accusingly everywhere else. 

“I’m fine. How are you?” 

The question threw Herbert off, shook up the anger he had been holding onto for Ash didn’t know how long. “I’ve been looking for you.” 

“So is that good? Bad?” 

Herbert was staring at him now, searching for something. “I had an… interesting encounter. It made me worry about you.” He was scowling again. “I guess I was foolish for doing so.” 

“Herbert,” Ash said in his most conciliatory tone. He considered the question again, recalled the strange feeling still coursing through him. “I’m… not really fine. I feel real weird tonight.” As he said it Ash reached up to brush hair out of his face. It was his returned hand, his deadite hand, and as it brushed along his face it clenched outside of his will, nails digging briefly into his cheek. “Ow! Shit.” He pulled his hand away and looked at the blood staining his fingers. It was brighter than normal, not the muddy swirl of red and green he was familiar with. He went still and all his reservations came surging back. “Herbert? We should leave.” 

*

The blood dripping down Ash’s face was impossible. His blood was always impossible, but it was being more unruly than usual. The red and green, which usually existed intermixed, was separated, swirled together artfully like a confection. The red was candy apple bright and the green looked like undimmed, fresh reagent, right down to the low glow coming off of it. 

“Right. Let’s go.” If he kept moving he wouldn’t have to think about how he had no solution for this problem, no idea what kind of problem it even was. The crowd parted again, easily, and the pair of them got a surprisingly hearty farewell for a professor and a stranger. The moment before he walked out the door he was seized by an urge to look back, so he did. No one vanished, not Ash and not the party, but then Herbert had never played a song so sad that the gods wept. Instead he felt a pull so strong that he thought that a student had grabbed him, but no one was there. He shook himself, grabbed Ash by the wrist, and went outside. 

“You don’t have to pull me,” Ash groused, but he didn’t pull his arm away. “I think I’ve stopped bleeding.” 

“Good.” A wind had picked up and Herbert let go of Ash so that he could pull his coat tighter about him. They stood side by side on the sidewalk and Herbert’s brain raced, trying to find some piece of the problem that he could latch on to. “Weird how?” he asked, picking up the conversation without preamble. Ash could keep up. 

Ash was flexing and patting himself down, seemingly testing his body. “Weird like… good? Like really good.” Herbert watched as Ash’s face fell from hopeful to afraid. “Too good. And on the edge of going deadite, I think.” He jammed his hands into his pockets and slouched forward. “All the good you don’t have time to feel when you’re forced out.” Herbert, ignoring Ash’s personal space, stepped in to examine his self-inflicted wound. Other than the bizarre hue of the coagulating blood it appeared normal, with none of the ragged darkness that came with deadite-infected damage. Next he seized Ash’s wrist and pulled the offending hand up where he could see it. Ash only grumbled at having his hand drug out of his pocket. There wasn’t anything unusual about the hand either – Herbert examined it regularly, as if he was some demon doctor. The thing didn’t even try to claw him, which was not a guarantee. 

He couldn’t find anything wrong, not anything he could recognize, his headache was getting worse, pulsing now. It was building up in tandem with that song that was somehow following him around all evening and they overlaid over one another to an uncomfortable degree. “I don’t know what to tell you Ash. Nothing seems that out of place.” A portion of his brain was still grasping, searching for something to offer Ash or to tear apart, but all it came back to, over and over, was some tune he didn’t even know, one that scraped at his molars and made him want to dance. He had never once wanted to dance before in his whole life. 

“We should-“ he began, but was cut off by Ash, who began to whistle. It was aimless, but it was also the tune that he had been hearing, the one that was carving out space in his mind that very moment. 

Ash looked up, looked through him, and Herbert shuddered. “I want to go to that party.” 

And when Herbert turned he was looking at the woods, at a glow rising out of them that no human gathering was making. The music rolled out from it, tangible at last. His headache evaporated. 

*

“Ash _no_ ,” Herbert hissed behind him, but he could hear how frightened the scientist was and he filled with pity. 

“It’ll be fine,” he said, and started in the direction of the gathering without looking back. He knew that Herbert would follow him. He also knew that he should be far more frightened that he was. 

“Are you out of your mind?!” Herbert hadn’t just followed, he had broken into a jog to overtake him and now he was square in the way, bracing himself. 

“No!” he said with a vehemence that he didn’t totally feel. “I just… I feel like I’m supposed to go there. Don’t you?” He could tell from the shift of Herbert’s eyes that he felt the same thing. 

“Sundews, pitcher plants, Venus fly traps. I’m sure their food feel like they’re supposed to be there too.” 

“I don’t think it’s gonna eat us.” Ash tried to duck around Herbert again, but Herbert stepped sharply and squared his shoulders. Ash would have sworn it was a move of his. 

“The personage I met earlier warned me about something happening to you.” Ash paused at this. 

“Something that wants to kill me?” Even this didn’t hold as much terror as it usually did. Something really was wrong with him. 

“She didn’t say that,” Herbert said reluctantly. “It wouldn’t have mattered though, would it have? You’d still be going in there.” He pointed and Ash could see how his hand was trembling. 

“Probably.” 

“Then we don’t have a choice.” Ash started walking again and Herbert fell in step beside him. He grinned, enjoying the night air. Before long they were in were in the woods, pushing through the branches. The pull of the music was growing steadily. As they walked Ash felt like time was slowing, like the night might last forever and this feeling would never leave him. It was appealing and terrifying all at the same time. 

He didn’t know how long they had actually been walking when they came into a large clearing, one Ash didn’t think existed when he took his regular walks. There was a fire at the center that crackled from one color to the next and all around it, mingling, talking, dancing, were… beings. Not humans, though some borrowed from the human shape, but beings out of fairy tales or myths. Beings forged of darkness and shaped from starlight, ancient things that shouldn’t be here but were and were having a good time on top of all of that. The music that had been haunting him wound through all of it. A chill raced up his spine and he wanted to be among them. 

“If we die,” Herbert said next to him, “I’m going to blame you.” 

“Of course,” he replied and they joined the party. 

*

If Herbert hadn’t seen Halloween’s embodiment earlier he wouldn’t have believed what he was seeing now. Ahead of him was a humanoid body spun out of silk and moonstones, topped by a head that was a hound-sized spider. To his left was some bog thing that dripped Spanish moss and had a snake swimming through its flesh. There was a crystal obelisk with no features, debating etiquette with some body half consumed by the music of the spheres, tiny planets caught in its gravity. The fact that he understood this debate, one carried out without actual words, didn’t bother him so much as the fact that the crystal was clearly right did. The sphere-sound was just being obstinate. 

Herbert tore himself away from the spectacle, because it would just keep happening, there was no end to the party, he was sure of it. None of the entities were paying the two of them any mind, at least at the moment, and Herbert wanted it to stay that way. Not that that was a likely outcome. 

Ash was gazing about with a look of wonder on his face and even Herbert felt his anxiety draining out of him. The air was crisp, the fire was warm, and the whole gathering had the potential of a held breath. Maybe it hadn’t been a mistake coming here after all. 

A shape like a scrap of space torn from the sky, with bone white fangs as long as Herbert’s forearm, nodded to Ash. When its non-eyes fell on Herbert he felt himself being assessed and then judged. He was found wanting. 

“He should not be here.” There was no preamble from the shape, and no mouth either. The condemnation was still clear and it turned all the heads and semi-heads in the clearing. Beside him Ash tensed. 

“Step closer and let us see you,” said the bog-thing. When Ash stepped forward it waved a sinuous arm and its snake breached out of its shoulder. “Not you. Those in the process of becoming are allowed.” 

“Can you not see?” said something right beside his ear, causing Herbert to jump. It wasn’t a figure that could be seen but a force, some stronger gravity, and his knees nearly buckled under its regard. “They are woven and besides, he is becoming as well.” 

“He is _changing_ , and it is not the same thing. No guarantee lives in his bones, not yet.” This was the spider head, chattering in a solemn way. The ring of party guests was closing about the two of them and Herbert could feel their scrutiny. There didn’t seem to be a way out so he focused on memorizing the scene and what these creatures were saying about him. He’d want to dwell on it, assuming he survived. 

“If he heard the call then he is welcome,” a great bipedal crow said, dried gore staining its beak. “That is our way.” 

“It isn’t the old way,” said an animated skeleton, one held together by roots and worms. It was so appropriate that this was the guest to bring up old ways Herbert nearly laughed. 

The entities were muttering now, the mood shifting rapidly, and Herbert could tell from the sideways glances he was getting that the ruling wasn’t going to be in his favor. Ash looked at him sideways too and Herbert shook his head. “Ash no,” he hissed for the second time that night. The look Ash gave him was as easy to read as any book in his library. It said “Herbert _yes_ ” and yes he would fight this whole gathering if he had to. Even though it was an undeniably terrible idea Herbert couldn’t help but appreciate it. 

The circle began to tighten, slowly, when another voice rang out over the throng. “And what if I vouch for him?” The crowd fell silent as she approached, grinning and gesturing elegantly. The gathered beings murmured their greetings as she moved through them, twice as tall as anyone there. Herbert was simply glad that he couldn’t see all her extra bones anymore. 

“Friend of yours?” Ash whispered. 

Herbert gave half a shrug. “I think so?” 

She was looming over them now, catching them in her shadow. “Hello again West. Glad to see you made it. How has your evening been, Ashley?” Ash didn’t quail under her gaze. 

“Pretty good up until very recently.” His voice was full of challenge. 

She merely chuckled, which caused the glow inside her pumpkin head to pulse. “Of course, of course. I believe I have your invitation West.” She bent nearly in half to get more level with him and extended one long arm. There, still dripping at the end of her nails, were his drops of blood. She brushed his face and he felt the returned blood sink into the small cuts and seal them shut. “Between you and me,” she whispered by his ear, “you have as much right to be here as anyone. You may not be as far along as they would like, but you are on the path.” 

Herbert wasn’t convinced that this was a good thing. She pulled away and the crowd dispersed and went back to their party. ‘Our party too,’ Herbert thought and he tried to keep a tight hold on that thought because he wasn’t sure what would happen if he loosened his grip on it for even a moment. 

“Hey, what did she say to you?” Ash was eyeing his healed face. 

“Don’t worry about it Ash. Nothing bad.” Herbert hoped he wasn’t lying. 

“Then…” Ash hesitated before gesturing grandly. “Shall we?” 

That gesture had been wide enough to encompassing leaving the clearing if he had wanted to be obtuse, if he wanted to protect them. But he didn’t quite want to and he was still enough in his own head to know that was dangerous, but not enough out of it to know if they should disregard that stolid, mortal instinct. 

So instead he shrugged and said “Why not?” and when the two of them passed by Halloween’s spirit he grabbed her, brazenly, and she turned, still smooth and regal. 

“He’s getting away from you West. If you let it The Blood will bogart him for the rest of the night.” Herbert looked the direction she gestured and saw Ash talking to the crystal he had eavesdropped on earlier. 

“I just want to know that we’re going to be alright, that this isn’t some Persephone situation or anything.” He didn’t know what he would do if she said it wasn’t safe. He very badly did not want to find out. 

“Even if you weren’t my guest you would be safe.” She looked no more benevolent than usual but Herbert believed her. “The music may be louder next time, faster, or more like your own heartbeat – who’s to say? But safe? Yes, here you are safe.” 

So Herbert left her side and let his defenses soften ever so much, not noticing later when they had been swept away like a child’s sandcastle on the shore. 

*

Ash woke up. 

This fact alone was enough of a shock that he just sat there for a moment and faced it, turned it over, inspected it closely. It held up to scrutiny – he had indeed been asleep and now he wasn’t anymore. And based off the light slanting into the living room window it was almost midday. 

He was home, that was good, though he didn’t remember getting here or, in fact, cramming himself onto one half of the couch. The other half was taken up by Herbert, the least harsh Ash had ever seen him, curled against the sofa’s arm. 

The night before was still there, a glowing coal in his mind, and he remembered almost all of it. He nearly choked on how reckless he had felt, how reckless he had been, because in the full light of day it was easy to see the thousand ways the night could have ended. None of those endings involved sleep, sleep for the first time in nearly a year. Dreamless sleep! That, more than anything in his life, felt impossible. A night without nightmares? He should be so lucky. 

But here he was, the luckiest asshole with an erratic pulse. No nightmares, no getting murdered by a small hoard of creatures on the edge of comprehension. Somehow this didn’t feel fragile. He pressed two fingers to his neck, just to make sure that he was still his version of alive, and nearly yanked his hand back when the pulse was strong and regular. 

He felt weird and it wasn’t just a good night’s sleep. It wasn’t the strangeness of the night before, where he had felt strong and fearless and a little bit gone. No, it was more familiar than that. It took a few seconds to realize that what he was feeling was existence as he had known it before everything, before even laying his eyes on the fucking cabin. For this moment he was alive and full of possibility. The sleep hadn’t quite been dreamless after all – he was waking up from the dream of being human. 

As he sat there the feeling faded out of him and he tracked it under his fingers, through his pulse. It settled back into the arrhythmic whir of the undead and he felt the familiar dread settle over him. It would probably be normal to despair at so many changes in so short a time, but he didn’t. Call it the last spark of whatever had happened the night before. Call it being a survivor. 

Ash careful disentangled himself from Herbert and the couch and got up to throw together something for the two of them to eat. Absently he flicked the wall calendar forward to November and then jotted a small note in the first day’s corner. 364 days to Halloween. 


End file.
